History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume V Part 19

346.) A certain youth at Oxford of uncommon learning.

[Sidenote: BILNEY TEACHES AT CAMBRIDGE.]

The monks took the alarm. "_A barbarian_," continues Erasmus, "entered the pulpit and violently abused the Greek language."--"These folk,"

said Tyndale, "wished to extinguish the light which exposed their trickery, and they have been laying their plans these dozen years."[321] This observation was made in 1531, and refers therefore to the proceedings of 1517. Germany and England were beginning the struggle at nearly the same time, and Oxford perhaps before Wittemberg. Tyndale, bearing in mind the injunction: "When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another," left Oxford and proceeded to Cambridge. It must needs be that souls whom G.o.d has brought to his knowledge should meet and enlighten one another: live coals, when separated, go out; when gathered together, they brighten up, so as even to purify silver and gold. The Romish hierarchy, not knowing what they did, were collecting the scattered brands of the Reformation.

[321] Which they have been in brewing as I hear this dozen years.

Tyndale's Expositions (Park. Soc.) p. 225

Bilney was not inactive at Cambridge. Not long had the "sublime lesson of Jesus Christ" filled him with joy, before he fell on his knees and exclaimed: "O Thou who art the truth, give me strength that I may teach it; and convert the unG.o.dly by means of one who has been unG.o.dly himself."[322] After this prayer his eyes gleamed with new fire; he had a.s.sembled his friends, and opening Erasmus's Testament, had placed his finger on the words that had reached his soul, and these words had touched many. The arrival of Tyndale gave him fresh courage, and the light burnt brighter in Cambridge.

[322] Ut impii ad ipsum per me olim impium converterentur. (Foxe, Acts, iv, p. 633.) That the unG.o.dly may be converted to thyself through me, once unG.o.dly.

John Fryth, a young man of eighteen, the son of an innkeeper of Sevenoaks in Kent, was distinguished among the students of King's College, by the prompt.i.tude of his understanding and the integrity of his life. He was as deeply read in the mathematics as Tyndale in the cla.s.sics, and Bilney in canon law. Although of an exact turn of mind, yet his soul was elevated, and he recognised in Holy Scripture a learning of a new kind. "These things are not demonstrated like a proposition of Euclid," he said; "mere study is sufficient to impress the theories of mathematics on our minds; but this science of G.o.d meets with a resistance in man that necessitates the intervention of a divine power. Christianity is a regeneration." The heavenly seed soon grew up in Fryth's heart.[323]

[323] Through Tyndale's instructions he first received into his heart the seed of the Gospel. Foxe, Acts, v. p. 4.

These three young scholars set to work with enthusiasm. They declared that neither priestly absolution nor any other religious rite could give remission of sins; that the a.s.surance of pardon is obtained by faith alone; and that faith purifies the heart. Then they addressed to all men that saying of Christ's at which the monks were so offended: _Repent and be converted!_

[Sidenote: CHRIST COMETH.]

Ideas so new produced a great clamour. A famous orator undertook one day at Cambridge to show that it was useless to preach conversion to the sinner. "Thou, who, for sixty years past," said he, "hast wallowed in thy l.u.s.ts, like a sow in her mire,[324] dost thou think that thou canst in one year take as many steps towards heaven, and that in thine age, as thou hast done towards h.e.l.l?" Bilney left the church with indignation. "Is that preaching repentance in the name of Jesus?" he asked. "Does not this priest tell us: Christ will not save thee.[325]

Alas! for so many years that this deadly doctrine has been taught in Christendom, not one man has dared open his mouth against it!" Many of the Cambridge fellows were scandalized at Bilney's language: was not the preacher whose teaching he condemned duly _ordained_ by the bishop? He replied: "What would be the use of being a hundred times consecrated, were it even by a thousand papal bulls, if the inward calling is wanting?[326] To no purpose hath the bishop breathed on our heads if we have never felt the breath of the Holy Ghost in our hearts?" Thus, at the very beginning of the Reformation, England, rejecting the Romish superst.i.tions, discerned with extreme nicety what const.i.tutes the essence of consecration to the service of the Lord.

[324] Even as a beast in his own dung. Bilnaeus Tonstallo episcopo; Foxe, Acts, iv, p. 640.

[325] He will not be thy Jesus or Saviour. Ibid.

[326] Without this inward calling it helpeth nothing before G.o.d to be a hundred times elect and consecrated. Ibid. p. 638.

After p.r.o.nouncing these n.o.ble words, Bilney, who longed for an outpouring of the Holy Ghost, shut himself up in his room, fell on his knees, and called upon G.o.d to come to the a.s.sistance of his church.

Then rising up, he exclaimed, as if animated by a prophetic spirit: "A new time is beginning. The Christian a.s.sembly is about to be renewed.... Some one is coming unto us, I see him, I hear him--it is Jesus Christ.[327]... He is the king, and it is he who will call the true ministers commissioned to evangelize his people."

[327] If it be Christ, him that cometh unto us. Ibid. p. 637.

Tyndale, full of the same hopes as Bilney, left Cambridge in the course of the year 1519.

Thus the English Reformation began independently of those of Luther and Zwingle--deriving its origin from G.o.d alone. In every province of Christendom there was a simultaneous action of the divine word. The principle of the Reformation at Oxford, Cambridge, and London was the _Greek New Testament_, published by Erasmus. England, in course of time learnt to be proud of this origin of its Reformation.

CHAPTER III.

Alarm of the Clergy--The Two Days--Thomas Man's Preaching--True real Presence--Persecutions at Coventry--Standish preaches at St. Paul's--His Pet.i.tion to the King and Queen--His Arguments and Defeat--Wolsey's Ambition--First Overtures--Henry and Francis Candidates for the Empire--Conference between Francis I and Sir T.

Boleyn--The Tiara promised to Wolsey--The Cardinal's Intrigues with Charles and Francis.

[Sidenote: ALARM OF THE CLERGY.]

This revival caused great alarm throughout the Roman hierarchy.

Content with the baptism they administered, they feared the baptism of the Holy Ghost perfected by faith in the word of G.o.d. Some of the clergy, who were full of zeal, but of zeal without knowledge, prepared for the struggle, and the cries raised by the prelates were repeated by all the inferior orders.

The first blows did not fall on the members of the universities, but on those humble Christians, the relics of Wickliffe's ministry, to whom the reform movement among the learned had imparted a new life.

The awakening of the fourteenth century was about to be succeeded by that of the sixteenth, and the last gleams of the closing day were almost lost in the first rays of that which was commencing. The young doctors of Oxford and Cambridge aroused the attention of the alarmed hierarchy, and attracted their eyes to the humble Lollards, who here and there still recalled the days of Wickliffe.

[Sidenote: THE COVENTRY MARTYRS.]

An artisan named Thomas Man, sometimes called Doctor Man, from his knowledge of Holy Scripture, had been imprisoned for his faith in the priory of Frideswide at Oxford (1511 A. D.) Tormented by the remembrance of a recantation which had been extorted from him, he had escaped from this monastery and fled into the eastern parts of England, where he had preached the Word, supplying his daily wants by the labour of his hands.[328] This "champion of G.o.d" afterwards drew near the capital, and a.s.sisted by his wife, the new Priscilla of this new Aquila, he proclaimed the doctrine of Christ to the crowd collected around him in some "upper chamber" of London, or in some lonely meadow watered by the Thames, or under the aged oaks of Windsor Forest. He thought with Chrysostom of old, that "all priests are not saints, but all saints are priests."[329] "He that receiveth the word of G.o.d," said he, "receiveth G.o.d himself, that is the true _real presence_. The vendors of ma.s.ses are not the high-priests of this mystery;[330] but the men whom G.o.d hath _anointed with his Spirit_ to be kings and priests." From six to seven hundred persons were converted by his preaching.[331]

[328] Work thereby to sustain his poor life. Foxe, Acts, iv, p. 209.

[329] Chrysostom, 43 Homily on Matth.

[330] He called them _pilled knaves_. Foxe. iv, p. 209.

[331] Ibid. p. 211.

The monks who dared not as yet attack the universities, resolved to fall upon those preachers who made their temple on the banks of the Thames, or in some remote corner of the city. Man was seized, condemned, and burnt alive on the 29th March 1519.

And this was not all. There lived at Coventry a little band of serious Christians--four shoemakers, a glover, a hosier, and a widow named Smith--who gave their children a pious education. The Franciscans were annoyed that _laymen_, and even a _woman_, should dare meddle with religious instruction. On Ash Wednesday (1519) Simon Morton, the bishop's sumner, apprehended them all, men, women, and children. On the following Friday, the parents were taken to the Abbey of Mackstock, about six miles from Coventry, and the children to the Grey Friar's convent. "Let us see what heresies you have been taught?" said Friar Stafford to the intimidated little ones. The poor children confessed they had been taught in English the Lord's prayer, the apostles' creed, and the ten commandments. On hearing this, Stafford told them angrily: "I forbid you, (unless you wish to be burnt as your parents will be,) to have any thing to do with the _Pater_, the _credo_, or the ten commandments _in English_."

Five weeks after this, the men were condemned to be burnt alive, but the judges had compa.s.sion on the widow, because of her young family (for she was their only support,) and let her go. It was night: Morton offered to see Dame Smith home; she took his arm, and they threaded the dark and narrow streets of Coventry. "Eh, eh!" said the apparitor, on a sudden, "what have we here?" He heard in fact the noise of paper rubbing against something. "What have you got there?" he continued, dropping her arm, and putting his hand up her sleeve, from which he drew out a parchment. Approaching a window whence issued the faint rays of a lamp, he examined the mysterious scroll, and found it to contain the Lord's prayer, the apostles' creed, and the ten commandments _in English_. "Oh, oh! sirrah!" said he; "come along. As good now as another time!"[332] Then seizing the poor widow by the arm, he dragged her before the bishop. Sentence of death was immediately p.r.o.nounced on her, and on the 4th of April, Dame Smith, Robert Hatchets, Archer, Hawkins, Thomas Bond, Wrigsham, and Landsdale, were burnt alive at Coventry in the Little Park, for the crime of teaching their children the Lord's prayer, the apostles'

creed, and the commandments of G.o.d.

[332] Ibid. p. 357.

[Sidenote: STANDISH AT ST. PAUL'S.]

But what availed it to silence these obscure lips, so long as the Testament of Erasmus could speak? Lee's conspiracy must be revived.

Standish, bishop of St. Asaph, was a narrow-minded man, rather fanatical, but probably sincere, of great courage, and not without some degree of piety. This prelate, being determined to preach a crusade against the New Testament, began at London, in St. Paul's cathedral, before the mayor and corporation. "Away with these new translations," he said, "or else the religion of Jesus Christ is threatened with utter ruin."[333] But Standish was deficient in tact, and instead of confining himself to general statements, like most of his party, he endeavoured to show how far Erasmus had corrupted the Gospel, and continued thus in a whining voice: "Must I who for so many years have been a doctor of the Holy Scriptures, and who have always read in my Bible: _In principio erat_ VERb.u.m,--must I now be obliged to read: _In principio erat_ SERMO," for thus had Erasmus translated the opening words of St. John's Gospel. _Risum teneatis_, whispered one to another, when they heard this puerile charge: "My lord,"

proceeded the bishop, turning to the mayor, "magistrates of the city, and citizens all, fly to the succour of religion!" Standish continued his pathetic appeals, but his oratory was all in vain; some stood unmoved, others shrugged their shoulders, and others grew impatient.

The citizens of London seemed determined to support liberty and the Bible.

[333] Imminere christianae religionis pa???et?e?a?, nisi novae translationes omnes subito de medio tollerentur. (Erasm. Ep.

p. 596.) That destruction threatened the Christian religion, unless all new translations were at once taken away from amongst them.

[Sidenote: A DISCUSSION.]

Standish, seeing the failure of his attack in the city, sighed and groaned and prayed, and repeated ma.s.s against the so much dreaded book. But he also made up his mind to do more. One day, during the rejoicings at court for the betrothal of the Princess Mary, then two years old, with a French prince who was just born, St. Asaph, absorbed and absent in the midst of the gay crowd, meditated a bold step.

Suddenly he made his way through the crowd, and threw himself at the feet of the king and queen. All were thunder-struck, and asked one another what the old bishop could mean. "Great king," said he, "your ancestors who have reigned over this island,--and yours, O great queen, who have governed Aragon, were always distinguished by their zeal for the church. Show yourselves worthy of your forefathers. Times full of danger are come upon us,[334] a book has just appeared, and been published too, by Erasmus! It is such a book that, if you close not your kingdom against it, it is all over with the religion of Christ among us."

[334] Adesse tempora longe periculosissima. Erasm. Ep. p. 597.

The bishop ceased, and a dead silence ensued. The devout Standish, fearing lest Henry's well-known love of learning should be an obstacle to his prayer, raised his eyes and his hands toward heaven, and kneeling in the midst of the courtly a.s.sembly, exclaimed in a sorrowful tone: "O Christ! O Son of G.o.d! save thy spouse! ... for no man cometh to her help."[335]

[335] Caepit obsecrare Christum dignaretur ipse suae sponsae opitulari.

(Ibid. p. 598.) He began to implore Christ, that he himself would deign to succour his spouse.